AMessage From
ChaplainArtBrooks…
Chaplain’s Message
By Ron Draper in Honor of Art & Sue Brooks
In Memory of Kevin Brooks
When hardship comes, help arrives in many and sometimes unexpected ways. I’m
honored this month to lift the burden of writing Chaplain’s Message from Art and
offer this writing for him so he can focus on things closer to home.
As most of you know, Art and Sue recently lost their son suddenly and unexpectedly
when he passed away quietly in his sleep.
The purpose of any memorial is of course to honor and remember the deceased. More
than that though, I think it’s a way to help broken hearts pour out their grief and
inspire them to find a way forward, to have good days again, while always
remembering who we’ve lost.
Kevin
When tragedy strikes, there’s virtually always a silver lining to cling to. But what
about when someone goes to sleep as normal as ever and never wakes up? There is no
hospital bed to go sit by. There’s no “it’s just lucky that...” there’s no “good thing …
didn’t happen too” there’s no story of so and so who had a similar thing but worse.
No, this is as bad as it gets. The sudden loss of any loved one leaves nothing but the
empty place in our souls that once was filled by the warm light of a person in our
lives, and to lose a son or daughter, nothing is worse. There are no words, there are
no gestures, no acts to help make any of it better. Everything seems so inadequate.
And yet we call, we stop to spend time, we pray, if only we could do more.